Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 12/A Hero of Old Astoria
A HERO OF OLD ASTORIA[1]
"McDonald of Oregon," is the hero of Old Astoria, the first native born Oregon traveler and explorer. It is a scant score of years since Ranald McDonald died, yet the archives of ancient chivalry are filled with crusaders such as he. The story of the American Northwest and the story of modern Japan can never be told without telling the life-story of McDonald of Oregon. Twenty years ago William Eliot Griffis, the famous writer on Japan, said: "It was McDonald who began educational activity in Japan the story of which will some day be fully written." Hildreth, the American historian, Nitobe of Japan, and others, accord to him the highest honor; but none knew where to find McDonald, none knew he belonged to Oregon. When recently "McDonald of Oregon" fell into the hands of Dr. Griffis, he wrote forthwith to my publishers and to me, "I had hoped to tell that wonderful story, I searched America for his record, but never dreamed of looking to Oregon." But Oregon is making a mark on the literary map of the nation, her heroes, past, present and to be, will loom larger in the limelight of the future.
It is now some twenty years since the story of John McLoughlin engaged my pen. "Oh, you must see Ranald McDonald," cried the old traders and voyageurs. "McDonald knows more of the old time than anybody."
"But where shall I find this McDonald?" "Oh, over at old Fort Colville," and at Colville I found him, the strangest, most romantic and picturesque character of Northwest annals, not even excepting Dr. McLoughlin. But when I spoke of McLoughlin as "King of the Columbia," with lifted head and hand McDonald protested "Nay, nay, I am the King of the Columbia." And when his story was told I was, indeed, compelled to admit that claim to kingship.
As early as 1823 Archibald McDonald came over the Canadian mountains and down into Oregon to Astor's old fort, where, in process of trade, exactly as McDougal had done before him, McDonald met and married a daughter of King Cumcumly. On a Sunday morning the wedding took place, and the bride was christened the Princess Sunday. Shortly before his father left on the upbound brigade of 1824 for Canada, Ranald was born, and was already a good-sized baby when his fur-trading father returned in the autumn with Dr. McLoughlin. "How far back can I remember McLoughlin? As far back as I can remember anything," said McDonald in later years.
When McLoughlin moved his headquarters to the new Fort Vancouver little Ranald went also, and was a child of eight when in 1832 three Japanese from a castaway junk were brought to Fort Vancouver. On that incident hinged McDonald's future story. He became acquainted with the castaways, learned a few words of their language and was fired with a zeal to visit their wonderful country. Sent to Canada to be educated, and later apprenticed as a clerk in the bank of an old friend of his father, Ranald McDonald planned to run away to Japan, and did so, finding his way on a whaler to those forbidden shores. Pretending to be a castaway, in June, 1848, he was picked up by fishermen on the northern shore of Japan, and was sent to the Governor of province after province for investigation and examination. For Japan was then closed to the world, no ships were permitted in her harbors, and staring thousands followed this "ijin," this foreigner, from the "Black Ships," as passing whale ships were called. Fortunately, McDonald's Indian tint caused him to be classed as a "Nippon-jin," a Nippon-man, or Japanese. Through the entire length of the land he was carried to Nagasaki, and here, again, before the governor, he was questioned and his answers carefully written down. "Some day," says Griffis, "these records will be found in the archives of Japan." But I have McDonald's own journal and story.
When others fell face to the ground before august governors, Ranald sat bolt upright, he and the governor alone facing each other "He has a great heart; he must be a prince," said the Japanese. When questioned he told of his home in Oregon, that his father was a great fur trader, pointed out Astoria and the Columbia River on the map, long before Perry ever crossed the seas to "open Japan." McDonald's description of Fort Colville, and of his father's retinue of servants, confirmed them in the opinion that he came of feudal rank, "not less than a samurai of old Japan."
So genial, docile and polite was Ranald, so ready to adopt Japanese dress and manners, that he became a general favorite, and was appointed by the governor of Nagasaki to teach the English language to a class of interpreters, the first school of English ever taught in Japan. Those are the interpreters who later met Commodore Perry and assisted in drawing up the treaties with Japan. Their pictures are given in Commodore Perry's reports. Here learned men and high officials gathered around McDonald, to learn of the outer world and to ask questions about America. "And who," they inquired, "who holds the highest rank in your country?"
Ranald thought a moment and answered, "The people." "What! greater than the President!" exclaimed the astonished Japanese. "Yes, the people are greater than the President."
This story of McDonald was frequently told by Edward Everett Hale when chaplain of the Senate.
After Ranald had been in Japan nearly a year, one day he heard a signal gun, a strange ship was approaching, the United States gunboat "Preble" in search of castaway sailors known to have been stranded on that coast. For the first time Ranald learned that several Americans were immured in the dungeons of Japan for the simple crime of having been wrecked there. All the more his own good fortune appeared remarkable. With those, he, too, was liberated, although it was his earnest desire to remain among his new friends in Japan.
To Commodore Glynn of the "Preble" McDonald gave a report of his adventures. These, published in Washington in executive document number 59 of the Thirty-second Congress, started Perry to Japan. McDonald always insisted that he opened the way for Perry, and it was his suggestion that models of western ingenuity should be taken and exhibited.
After years of adventure, Ranald McDonald returned to Oregon, to find it divided into Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and among the ruins of old Fort Colville he spent his declining years. In 1892 he made a pilgrimage to Astoria to press his claims for recompense as heir to the Chinook lands of his grandfather, King Cumcumly. But alas, he found himself, "A prince without a principality, a king without a subject." Sadly he journeyed back up the Columbia where, widely known as "Old Sir Ranald," the aristocratic old man died among his tumble-down buildings at the ripe age of seventy years, August 24, 1894.
Of all Oregonians, Ranald McDonald deserves a statue, pointing toward Japan.
- ↑ Address by Eva Emery Dye, author of "McLoughlin and Old Oregon," "McDonald of Oregon," and "The Conquest," at Historical Institute, Astoria, Sept. 7, 1911.